Thursday, June 13, 2013

From "Frank McCourt could be sole landlord if NFL comes to Dodger Stadium site" by Bill Shaikin at the LA Times:

If the NFL wants to play at Dodger Stadium, Frank McCourt could be the sole landlord.

In any case, the value of the Dodgers sale could exceed $3 billion.

Those details were included in previously unreleased provisions of the sale agreement between McCourt and the Dodgers' new owners, Guggenheim Baseball Management. The Los Angeles Superior Court last week denied Guggenheim's request to keep those provisions secret; The Times obtained a financial summary of the deal Wednesday.

The key provision makes clear that McCourt retains a critical role in determining whether the NFL returns to Los Angeles. McCourt could win either way: by luring the NFL to the Dodger Stadium site, or by pocketing $150 million if he cannot.

It's been apparent for a while that Guggenheim couldn't completely sever McCourt's financial interests from the Dodgers; now we learn McCourt stands to make at least $150 million on top of his $1.278 billion in profit from selling the team. It's been a fatiguing season — we'll see if Dodger fans have the energy to muster outrage at this time.

When a deal goes down, however, expect plenty of bitching and moaning. I can just picture Magic Johnson tweeting about it: